A hearing aid fitting device that is used to make usage settings for a hearing aid sets (fits) the hearing aid characteristics of the hearing aid to match the hearing ability of the user of that hearing aid. To this end, first the hearing ability of the user is measured from low- to high-pitched sounds in the audible frequency band. Next, the hearing aid characteristics are adjusted based on this hearing ability data. However, this processing often takes a long time, even for an experienced adjustment technician.
Specifically, the sense of hearing varies greatly from one person to the next, and also depends on the measurement environment (the season of the year, the size of the measurement space, etc.), the time of day, the person's physical condition, and so forth. Therefore, these are all factors that can make the adjustment take longer. More specifically, even though the goal is to adjust the hearing aid so that the final settings are gradually reached, it is common for the user to say that the last sound was better, causing the adjustment technician to have to go back. As a result, the adjustment ends up taking a long time. In view of this, there have been studies into ways to set these hearing aid characteristics in less time by utilizing an interactive genetic algorithm (see Patent Literature 1 below, for example). Using this interactive genetic algorithm allows the fitting to be performed merely by having the user listen to and compare a number of parameters supplied from the system.